Cocoa Peppermint Cookie Bark: Creative Cookie Exchange

Cocoa Peppermint Cookie Bark is a play on traditional chocolate bark, but make with crispy cocoa cookies instead. Perfect for the holidays and your Christmas cookie tray! Keep reading to check out everyone else’s fabulous peppermint cookie creations from Creative Cookie Exchange. Affiliate links have been used in this post to link to items I am discussing.

Any longtime readers of this blog can imagine how insanely excited I have been for this month’s Creative Cookie Exchange. Peppermint! Practically my favorite flavor ever. Not counting chocolate, which isn’t exactly a flavor so much as an actual something. And besides, peppermint with chocolate trumps all of them, so… So you see before you (figuratively) one happy blogger.

Happy Holidays! In case I hadn’t said so. It has been an insane December. On the one hand, with such a late Thanksgiving, everything feels like a big scramble to get ready before the big day. On the other hand, what a magical holiday season it has been so far! 3 snow days in the last week and a half! Now I know rain is coming and the odds are not in our favor, but thus far it has been a white Christmas(time)! I love all the snow! Snuggling up on the couch marathon watching The Sing-Off and drinking hot chocolate. With all of the lights turned on on the tree of course.

It’s my favorite time of year.

Now about these cookies. I was originally going to make Peppermint Bark Shortbread, which Stacy made for this theme and which I really encourage you to check out. It basically layers peppermint bark on top of shortbread and I have always thought it must be fantastic. But I was really hoping not to replicate anyone else’s cookie, so I went back to the drawing board, and came up with this cookie, adapted from Alice Medrich’s Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies. It basically uses a gigantic cocoa tuile cookie which is then drizzled and sprinkled to great holiday effect before being broken up into pieces. I took it to a holiday party this past weekend where it got rave reviews. It is a simple cookie, but the one tricky part is spreading the cookie batter equally thin. I had to put the middle part of the giant cookie back in the oven at a low heat when I realized it was not as crispy as the edges. But it all turned out wonderfully.

You can use Creative Cookies as a great resource for cookie recipes–be sure to check out our Pinterest Board, and our monthly posts. You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month! Also, if you are looking for inspiration for this month’s theme, check out what all of the hosting bloggers have made so far:

Chocolate Peppermint and Chocolate Chip Cookies from Karen at Karen’s Kitchen Stories 

Chocolate Peppermint Crinkle Cookiess from Holly at A Baker’s House

Cocoa Peppermint Cookie Bark from Laura at The Spiced Life

Mint Chocolate Cookies from Jill at Made with Love

Peppermint Bark Shortbread from Stacy at Food Lust People Love

Peppermint Dark Chocolate Drizzled Coconut Macaroons from Felice at All That’s Left Are the Crumbs

Peppermint French Macarons from Miranda at Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt

Peppermint Mocha Cookies from Sophia at If I Ever Owned a Bakery

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Cocoa Peppermint Cookie Bark

Closely adapted from Alice Medrich

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Cookies

Keyword: Christmas, mint

Author: TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

For cookie base:

• 4 T unsalted butter, melted and still warm
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
• 1/8 t salt
• 2 large egg whites
• 4 t (1 T plus 1 t) AP flour

For topping:

• 1.5 oz bittersweet chocolate finely chopped
• 1.5 oz white chocolate finely chopped
• 1 T unsalted butter (optional, see instructions)
• 1/3 cup crushed candy canes or hard peppermint candies

Instructions

Make the cookie base:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line 2 rimmed half sheets with silicone liners or parchment paper. Set aside.
2. In another medium bowl, whisk the melted butter with the sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Add the egg whites and whisk until smooth, then whisk in the flour.
3. Pour half of the batter onto each cookie sheet. Using an offset spatula, smooth the batter out to cover most of the cookie sheets, keeping the batter as even as possible to ensure even baking.
4. I baked both sheets at the same time, but I have a convection oven. If you do not, bake the sheets one at a time on the center rack, rotating the pan halfway through the baking.
5. Bake for 11-13 minutes, until the cookie darkens and looks set. Repeat with other cookie sheet.
6. Let cool completely.

Make the topping:

1. Melt the chocolates (separately). I always use the microwave, in 20-30 second increments at 40-50% power. Sometimes high quality white chocolate can be very thick--if this happens, add a tablespoon of butter to loosen it a bit. In both cases, mix until smooth.
2. Drizzle the bittersweet chocolate all over both cookies. Then repeat with the white chocolate--once again, if the white chocolate is a little stiff, put it in a plastic baggie, snip one corner off the bag, and squeeze it to drizzle. Be careful not to squeeze too hard or you will end up with a blob of white chocolate, which did happen to me!
3. Immediately, before the chocolates set, sprinkle the crushed candy canes over the 2 cookies.
4. Place the cookie sheets in a fridge (or cold garage) for 10 minutes to set the chocolate. Then break into small pieces.
5. If, as happened to me, it turns out parts of the cookie are underbaked, put it back into a 200 F oven for 15 minutes at a time, then allow to cool completely, and then recheck for crispness. Repeat if necessary. I had to do it twice, but because it was mostly hands-off, it was not a big deal.

For the collage lovers: